Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes
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| South Park episode | |
| "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes" | |
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| Episode no. | 120 |
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| Airdate | November 3, 2004 |
| South Park - Season 8 March 17, 2004 – December 15, 2004 |
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| ← Season 7 | Season 9 → |
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| List of all South Park episodes | |
"Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes" is episode 809 of Comedy Central's South Park. This episode originally aired on November 3, 2004.
Contents |
[edit] Story
A Wall-Mart opens in South Park with much fanfare. Everyone in town starts shopping there, due to its bargains. This forces the local businesses to shut down, as well as making some of the now-unemployed residents work there. The townspeople decide they no longer want the Wall-Mart in South Park and agree to boycott. The boycott fails, however, because many townspeople surreptitiously break the boycott in pursuit of good deals. The townspeople then decide to burn it down, only to see it rebuilt. A man rebuilding the Wall-Mart tells Kyle, Stan, and Kenny that the rebuilding order came from the "higher-ups" in Bentonville, Arkansas. The three of them then start heading to Bentonville to stop the Wall-Mart. The Wall-Mart then starts "speaking" to Cartman, telling him his friends are trying to destroy it. He catches up with the other boys at a bus station, where he then goes along with them, despite "working with the Wall-Mart" to stop them from succeeding. Cartman first tries to stop them by slashing the buses tires, but they still reach Bentonville. They reach Wall-Mart HQ where they find out they need to talk to Harvey Brown, the current president of Wal-Mart. The boys ask him how they can stop it, and he tells them they need to find and destroy its "heart". As the boys leave, Brown turns to the boys, puts a gun to his head, says "boys, tell the world I'm sorry," and pulls the trigger.
They make it back to South Park, and are about to enter it when Cartman confronts them with a knife in his hand, and says "Wall-Mart is a great store, I cannot let you fools ruin its terrific bargains. You see, I was working for Wall-Mart all along!" Kyle then tells him he knew that he was, and a "Yes I did" "No you didn't" argument ensues. Kenny is then assigned to hold Cartman off while Stan and Kyle enter the Wall-Mart. Once in the Wall-Mart, they find Stan's father, who tells them they need to go to the television department, and they will need his keys. Immediately, Randy starts to buckle to Wall-Marts bargains. He finally caves in to a screwdriver set which is "only $9.98," telling him the bargain is too great. He gives the boys his keys, and the two head for the television department. Once they are there, they are confronted by a man who says he is Wall-Mart. After a confusing dialogue, he finally tells the boys that the heart "lies beyond that plasma screen television". The boys walk over to find it is a mirror, to which the Wall-Mart responds, "yes, don't you see? That is the heart of Wall-Mart. You. The consumer. I take many forms, Wall-Mart, K-Mart, Target, but I am one single entity; desire." The boys then smash the mirror to "destroy the heart." The actual building of Wall-Mart then begins to fall apart, and the man who says he is Wall-Mart starts to laugh diabolically. Everyone evacuates the Wall-Mart, as it begins to cave in to one area. After the Wall-Mart disappears, it defecates. Randy then gives a speech about how the Wall-Mart was "us", and that if they want to keep the small town charm, they need to spend a little more. Jimbo then says they should all go shop at Jim's Drug down the street. The store is seen with people streaming in and out of it, and a time lapse shows the store getting bigger and bigger as the amount of people grows, its final look resembling the Wall-Mart. The final part of the episode shows Jim's Drugs being burned down, as Randy then says "All right, let's not make that mistake again," to which Mr. Garrison responds "yeah, let's go shop over at TrueValue!" as everyone goes with him.
[edit] References to other works/Pop culture
- Walmart's Ms Williams states that South Park was right on target this episode, in that Walmart's existence is due to customers shopping there. (Wall St Journal)
- The title (and some of the plot) comes from the novel Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, the title of which, in turn, comes from a line in Macbeth.
- The "Heart of Wall-Mart" scene is lifted from the Architect scene in Matrix Reloaded.
- At the end of the episode, the Wall-Mart vanishes the same way that the house did in the movie Poltergeist. However, it also "craps its pants" when it vanishes.
- Near the end, when the people find out Wall-Mart's weak point lies in the "heart", Chef says, "Spread the word to other towns" to a military telegraph operator in a parody of the end of Independence Day and was used on the season three episode Chinpokomon.
- The sound used to display time passing (such as when Jim's drug increases in size during the last few minutes) is the sound used in Heroes of Might and Magic III when a new week starts.
- The part in which the Wall-Mart manager writes on a piece of paper that it's not safe to talk there, this is very much like a scene from The X-Files episode "Little Green Men".
- When the boys infiltrate the South Park Wall-Mart to get to the heart, Stan's father Randy approaches the boys with an ax to show them the bargain price of it. This shot of Randy is reminiscent of Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.
- When the Wall-mart is "talking" to Cartman, at the bottom of the screen there are chocolate bars and a box saying 'GOLDEN TICKET', in reference to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
- This episode features a running gag about how people "crap their pants" when they die. Throughout the episode, an expiring character defecates upon death (including the imploding Wal-Mart at the end). This is later used in the Season 10 episode The Return of Chef and was used on the Family Guy episode I Take Thee Quagmire.
[edit] Goofs
- When Randy wakes up during the night, Sharon is wearing an eye mask. But when the camera starts looking in through the glass at Randy, it disappears. Then when the angle shifts back, it's there again.
- When the second Wall-Mart is being built, the boys enter as the W on the sign is lowered into place. When they leave, the same W is again being lowered into place.
- As Kyle and Stan attempt to escape the crumbling Wall-Mart, Stan's voice is heard saying "C'mon, let's get outta here!" However, Kyle's mouth syncs with the dialogue instead of Stan's.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by "Douche and Turd" |
South Park episodes | Followed by "Pre-School" |
